Thursday, October 20, 2011

A day in the life

Yesterday, I went to the gym for the first time in a long time. It's a different gym than before. I got one of those passes that have a limited number of uses. The front desk girl told me that the Body Pump class would be starting at 7:40pm. She said check it out. OK.

I went and did some treadmill for 10 minutes, and then went to the room where they were going to do Body Pump. Everyone was laying out equipment on the floor. Low platforms and barbells? OK, I can do this. The class trainer is this TCG (Tiny Chinese Girl). Yeah, she looks really fit, but she's only a TCG, right?

I never thought a TCG could outlift me. I am in so much pain today. For the entire hour, I could barely keep up with her. My legs felt like collapsing. And she just kept on going with this big grin on her face. "Jia you! Come on! YES! One more! OK, go! Houmian de nansheng, ni keyi ma?? Jia you!!" Nod yes, I'm OK, with gritted teeth. And now today, can barely move.

Went to Mandarin class today after work. My teacher signed me up for this foreigner speech competition. She's been bugging me about it for 2 or 3 weeks now. I keep telling her to find someone else, because my Mandarin is still pretty bad. But she says no, my Mandarin is by far better than all her other students. And there's an 8000 RMB prize. OK, OK, fine.

What do I find out today? It's a multi-round event and somehow I'm already in the semi-finals, even though I never participated yet. Furthermore, I have to not only give a speech, but also sing a Chinese song (or do some other kind of Chinese cultural performance). Maybe I can come down with a big case of diarrhea Friday night. The semi-finals are on Saturday. I have to learn a Chinese song in 2 days? :(

Who is PakG1?

I'm a Vancouver Canuck fan now living across the pond in China. My interests include disruption, global trends, Go (also known as Baduk or Weiqi), information asymmetry, games, innovation, languages, reading, skiing, and volunteering.